http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart Cornelius Puschmann on corporate and institutional blogging, linguistics, open access and other things that interest him. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:28:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart#comment-83048 Reader Q&A: The Ethics of Ghost Blogging | Morningstar Marketing Blog Sat, 10 May 2008 18:06:16 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart#comment-83048 [...] still find outbursts of blogger scorn whenever something seems deliberately deceiving - like the fake Wal-Mart blog, PR companies ghost blogging, and even an April Fool’s joke by a popular author - for the [...] [...] still find outbursts of blogger scorn whenever something seems deliberately deceiving - like the fake Wal-Mart blog, PR companies ghost blogging, and even an April Fool’s joke by a popular author - for the [...]

]]> http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart#comment-10659 CorpBlawg » What kind of PR works in the networked world? Sun, 31 Dec 2006 18:32:06 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart#comment-10659 [...] How does this relate to PR and blogging? I believe that the central challenge to PR in an environment characterized by direct and unstructured communication is to figure out where the voice of the individual and the voice of the institution intersect. If the institutional voice is dead, consolidating concepts such as corporate identity have lost their relevance. Institutions would be largely characterized by the individuals they employ, and they would change significantly every time the team changes. But if the institutional voice is not dead, I wonder what exactly it can sound like in an environment like the blogosphere, where we are always talking to other individuals, not to brands or claims. What is too personal for business blogs? Why are fake blogs such a taboo? And does a company actually benefit from a talented blogger, or does an interesting personality eventually drown out the company in the perception of the readers? [...] [...] How does this relate to PR and blogging? I believe that the central challenge to PR in an environment characterized by direct and unstructured communication is to figure out where the voice of the individual and the voice of the institution intersect. If the institutional voice is dead, consolidating concepts such as corporate identity have lost their relevance. Institutions would be largely characterized by the individuals they employ, and they would change significantly every time the team changes. But if the institutional voice is not dead, I wonder what exactly it can sound like in an environment like the blogosphere, where we are always talking to other individuals, not to brands or claims. What is too personal for business blogs? Why are fake blogs such a taboo? And does a company actually benefit from a talented blogger, or does an interesting personality eventually drown out the company in the perception of the readers? [...]

]]> http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart#comment-6475 CorpBlawg » Why you’re interesting but your company just isn’t Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:45:51 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/10/22/expanding-on-authorship-trust-and-wal-mart#comment-6475 [...] Northeastern University and Backbone Media recently conducted a study on corporate blogging where they asked 21 company bloggers for their experiences and opinions. I think the study is interesting not only because of the responses it cites, but because the responses say something about the bloggers who were interviewed and their take on how corporate blogging works. I’ve argued before that corporate blogs - as much, perhaps even more than private blogs - serve a social function, that is, that they seek to establish a relationship between the blogger (acting as a representative of the company) and his readers. Obviously a blog benefits from being informative, but before it can inform it has to achieve the status of a trusted source. However, the only way it can become a trusted source is by making the blogger a familiar, tangible person to his readers - someone with a personality, humor, interests, quirks, etc. The trouble with brochures, CEO interviews, mission statements and normal company websites isn’t that they aren’t informative, it’s that they lack what the cluetrainers have dubbed “a human voice”*. [...] [...] Northeastern University and Backbone Media recently conducted a study on corporate blogging where they asked 21 company bloggers for their experiences and opinions. I think the study is interesting not only because of the responses it cites, but because the responses say something about the bloggers who were interviewed and their take on how corporate blogging works. I’ve argued before that corporate blogs - as much, perhaps even more than private blogs - serve a social function, that is, that they seek to establish a relationship between the blogger (acting as a representative of the company) and his readers. Obviously a blog benefits from being informative, but before it can inform it has to achieve the status of a trusted source. However, the only way it can become a trusted source is by making the blogger a familiar, tangible person to his readers - someone with a personality, humor, interests, quirks, etc. The trouble with brochures, CEO interviews, mission statements and normal company websites isn’t that they aren’t informative, it’s that they lack what the cluetrainers have dubbed “a human voice”*. [...]

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